Writing Process - The Princess and the Pea

Adapting fairy tales is a tricky business. Readers expect something both familiar and new. ​There are many versions of each story. The really popular ones have films, novels, plays, TV shows, sequels, prequels, and spinoffs that have colored expectations of both readers and writers. (I’m looking at you, Snow White, Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast.)

The Princess and the Pea is not one of those popular tales. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film or read anything longer than a short story adaptation of it. There are only two things that came to mind as I thought of the tale: Gail Carson Levine’s short story The Princess Test and the musical Once Upon a Mattress. My memory of the short story is hazy, and I’ve only seen clips of the musical.

So I approached this with few expectations. The story itself is quite simple and, honestly, quite silly. If you haven’t read it lately, here’s the original. Adapting something so short into a full length novel demands that more be added, but I wanted to make sure I stayed true to the spirit of the original.

This story raised several questions for me that ultimately shaped the entire novel. They were:

• How does a respectable, sane princess (or any girl) end up on the doorstep of a castle after dark?
• Why is she alone? Does no one miss her? Why is there no one who can verify her identity?
• Why is there a test to determine if she is a princess and choose the prince’s bride?
• Why does the prince care so much about marrying a true princess?
• How could a pea under your mattress cause extreme bruising?

In addition to answering these questions in the novel, I also searched for the theme of the story. What was the main idea behind this fairy tale?

To me, this is a story of identity and lineage. The girl can only have a happy ending after she proves she is a true princess. The prince must marry a true princess, so his happiness relies on her parentage as well. Their ancestry determines their destiny. On the surface, this is a shallow motivation. It implies you aren’t worth any more than your family tree, and you never will be.

I guess I’m too modern to accept that at face value. It might have made sense at the time this story was written, but it just doesn’t ring true in today’s society. Of course lineage matters, but ultimately your actions matter more. We like to see heroes shape their own destiny, and that’s exactly what Lina and Alaric do in The Princess and the Pea.

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